Spring ends
in June and is succeeded by warm summer, which, to modern people, conjures
thoughts of a well-deserved break and leisure outdoor activities.
The
painting of the three nude boys (putti), placed in a pyramid shape in a sunny
landscape, represents summer. The rake, sickle and scythe suggest the necessary
tasks of the season – mowing and harvesting – have been completed, and the grown
wheat is carefully bundled into sheaves.
The
painting is attributed to the Venetian painter Giulio Carpioni (1613–1675),
whose teacher was Titian's successor Alessandro Varotari (1588–1649), called
Padovanino. His visit to Bergamo brought him under the influence of Lombard painting;
later, he looked up to the Caravaggisti, too. His oeuvre is varied: painted
altarpieces, frescoes and, in his later years, also etchings. He is best known
for his allegorical scenes, mythological images and bacchanalia.
Natural
cycles are very common motif in fine arts. The four seasons, together with the
twelve months, the four elements and the five senses, were part of the
compulsory furnishings of esteemed homes. Like other intangible ideas and
phenomena, the seasons can be represented by human figures (personifications). We
thus often encounter Summer as the harvest goddess Ceres or coquettish nude
women surrounded by flowers. Among the most special representations are the
fantastical male heads by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593), which are made up of
crops typical of the season.
In other
depictions, we can observe traditional seasonal tasks. The richly illustrated
book of hours Belles Heures of Duc de
Berry shows mowing, raking and putting up haystacks in June, wheat
harvesting and sheep shearing in July, and bundling, bathing in the river and falcon
hunting in August. The same tasks (harvesting and shearing sheep) also appear
in other artists' depictions, e.g. Jacopo Bassano’s and Pieter Brueghel the
Younger’s. Within Baroque playfulness, and even later, these scenes are often
reduced to depictions of joyful putti with attributes illustrative of the work
and produce of the season, as in Carpioni's painting.
The theme
has remained relevant, and thus present, in all art periods and has always
reflected the lively summer mood, whether in the Rococo pastorals of François
Boucher (1703–1770), the green meadow and carefree braiding of flowers in Summer by Ivana Kobilca (1861–1926), or
in the vividly coloured silkscreens by Metka Krašovec (1941–2018).
Carpioni's
painting was once part of a private collection of Eduard Ritter von Strahl, who
found various ways to grow his collection. The core presented the original
furnishings of the Stara Loka Mansion, which had been in the family from the
matrilineal side since 1755, and which Edvard and his sister had inherited in
1833. From the 1860s onwards, a number of individuals took part in the collecting,
from art dealers, Edvard’s son Karl, to the housekeeper Johana Struppi, who
acquired works from local painters or brought them in from parish churches,
parsonages and old houses.
Edvard
Strahl bought the Carpioni painting together with its pair Autumn from the art dealer Alessandro Volpi around 1865. According
to the extant description, it is supposed to show a satyr and two putti, but
its present location is not known.
After
Edvard's death, the collection passed to his son Karl (1850–1929), and after
his death, the collection was auctioned off in 1930, dispersing it across
institutions and countries. Karl’s testament ensured that the National Museum,
the National Gallery and the Ethnographic Museum all could pre-select pieces
they needed to complete own collections and purchase them on favourable terms.
Today, the works from Strahl's collection form one of the core holdings of the
National Gallery and feature prominently in its Permanent Collection.